Quote:
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Originally Posted by southwell
Hmmm, not sure about this one myself, obviously babies can sense the people in the room but how would scientists know what the babies are thinking.  Do they just make this stuff up? |
They don't
know what the babies are thinking and they don't just make it up.
The description of the experiment explains it. Given a choice of looking at a monitor showing the correct number of faces for the number of voices heard, the babies appear to spend more time at that, than the monitors showing a different number of faces.
Does this
prove they can count? Of course not, but if the tests are repeated a number of times and the results start to correlate, then it is fair to draw that conclusion.
Consider this - most children can count long before they can associate 'numbers' with the counting. You'd never have to teach them that if there were 4 of them that they'd need 4 sweets to share. The reason a result like this comes as a surprise to many is that as soon as we can we try to teach children to do basic counting. We never get a chance to see how these skills would develop naturally.